Father's Day
by HecateA
Summary: The holiday Sally Jackson the single mother dreads. Taking place before Smelly Gabe came into play. Happy Mother's Day! Oneshot.


**Happy Mother's Day! Okay, so this is a weird post on Mother's Day, which I'm sure you all thought when you saw the title. But it's a celebration of mothers featuring one of my favourite fictional mothers. **

**Disclaimer: Me no own.**

**Dedication: To my mom. You will never read this because you're so sick of hearing me ramble on about Percy Jackson that you'll never pick up a book, much less read the fanfiction. But I love you a lot more than the English and French languages permits me to say. The man who wrote the dictionnary wasn't thinking about mothers when he wrote it, because he didn't put in a word more powerful than 'love' to describe you. **

* * *

Sally woke up and groaned to herself.

It was June, wasn't it? The third Saturday of June? Yes; millions of kids were waking their dads up right now and stacking colourful boxes on their beds and proudly putting handmade cards in their faces. Dads everywhere were unwrapping sports team memarobilia, crafts from school, boxes of chocolate, ties…

_Try it seashell pattern, _Sally thought to herself. She grinned a little, and then felt brave enough to open her eyes to face the day.

She could cope with Father's day usually. Turn off the radio so she wouldn't hear the song requests 'in honour of Dad', not read the newspaper to avoid columns like 'Top 10 things to do with your Dad this weekend'. She could lessen the blow for Percy as well. Most years she'd give him blue candy and in the bag there'd be a note (that he'd make her read out loud) saying that they were going to go to Montauk (which Sally thought of as also ironic) and every year he billowed with excitement even if she did it all the time. Usually he was king of the day and that was enough to take anything off a little boy's mind, although preschool had planted the first seeds of doubt in his mind about something being really _wrong _about not having a father. Sally couldn't agree more with him, but this was an exception that she couldn't explain to him any better than she did.

But this year he'd hit first grade. _Ouch. _They'd talked about it at school, about how their daddies were important, and why they loved their Dad and what made him so great. Percy had gotten in trouble for describing his father as Batman and then telling his teacher who had denied it that she couldn't prove it. He was old enough to know that –even if most details thankfully remained fuzzy in his head- a little boy always needed a mommy _and _a daddy to be born, and he was beginning to wonder what had happened to his or what made him special enough to exist without a father.

Sally had done as best as he could. "You do have a daddy sweetheart," she'd said. "And he loves you very much. But he can't be there for you, okay? And it's nobody's fault, especially not yours."

When she sat up she blinked the fuzz out of her eyes and saw Percy standing there, his green eyes nailed on her, as if waiting for her. He was fully dressed –although his hair was an unruly black mess, his laces weren't tied up, his socks were pulled high up, and the buttons of his shirt were done one too high up.

"Hi Sweetheart," she said with a smile.

"Hi Mommy," he said handing her something. It was a card. She frowned and took it from him. It was a piece of construction paper, folded in two with potato-like figures giving each other a hug and 'Hapqy Father's bay Mommy!' written in her son's handwriting at the top, in alternating wax crayon colours. She opened it and there was another picture of what she assumed was Montauk.

I LOVE YOU VERY SUPER VERY MUCH

PERCY

"Sweetheart, what's this for?" She asked, helping Percy climb into bed. He sat on her knees looking serious.

"Well, Mother's day is for Mommies and Father's day is for Daddies. But you do double the work because my daddy isn't here, and you're the best Mommy ever, so you should get two cards." He said logically.

Sally looked at him.

"I love you Mommy," he said.

"I love you too Percy," she said opening her arms for him. He gave her a pouncing hug and she held him tightly in her arms.


End file.
